Fiona Ackerman

Home: Vancouver, British Columbia
Title: Distraction
Media: Acrylic on canvas / acrylique sur toile
Dimensions: 76 x 101 cm

Painting has been my core focus for over 10 years. During this time, I have been fascinated by how such a simple material can be expressive in so many different ways. While have I produced a large body of detailed figurative work, I have also explored a world of bold abstract painting. Often my work has teetered on a combination of both. No matter what the outcome, the true motivation is a real passion for colour, a studious focus on composition, and strong desire to let my work tell stories and express emotion.

Painting as a vocation is also something that runs deeply through the core of my family relationships. I came to know my father as a teenager. A German painter himself, he had always been completely dedicated to his art, with family life an unfortunate casualty. Meeting him was the beginning of a complete reformation of my own identity. More than just gaining a paternal history, I found the roots of my own creative drive.

Over several summers, he taught me not only to paint but how to be a painter, how to fine-tune a craft and build a career. But to follow his example would mean being a man ambitiously devoted to his art. Here I am at 31, not a man with ambition, but a woman with a baby – and still a painter.

The painting I have submitted is a portrait of my husband and son sitting beneath one of my paintings. Titled Distraction, is about the delicate place painting holds in my family relationships now. As I look at my young family sitting for me to paint them, supporting my desire to paint, tolerating my desire to paint, I think about the example set by my father. I wonder if I can be wife, mother and painter. Will I succeed in dividing my devotion? Can I live it all fully, despite the distraction?

EDUCATION:

2002 BFA Visual Arts, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver BC
1998 DEC Creative Arts, Dawson College, Creative Arts, Montreal QC

EXHIBITIONS:
2009 Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver BC (Solo)

2008 View Art Gallery, Victoria BC (Solo)
The Artist Project Toronto, Liberty Grand, Toronto ON

2007 Halcyon Days, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver BC (Group)
Portrayal, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver BC (Group)

2006 Galerie Soleil, Montreal QC (Solo), Les Femmeuses, Pratt & Whitney, Longueuil QC (Juried Exhibition), Painting on the Edge, Fed. of Canadian Artists, Vancouver BC (Juried Exhibition)

COLLECTIONS:
Bankhaus Bauer HT, Stuttgart Germany
Carte Blanche, Vol. 2 – Painting, The Magenta Foundation, 2008

REPRESENTATION:
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver BC
View Art Gallery, Victoria BC
Soho Myriad, Altalnta GA, Los Angeles CA